August 9, 2025 • 38 mins
Two people were shot on the set of Alec Baldwin's movie Rust.
Director of photography Halyna Hutchins died, and director Joel Souza was wounded. Reports say first assistant director David Halls picked up one of three prop guns set up by armorer Hannah Gutierrez and yelled, “cold gun.”
"Cold gun" is industry slang meaning the gun does not contain live rounds. Halls gave the gun to Baldwin, who used it to rehearse a scene. According to the search warrant, Baldwin aimed the weapon at the camera when he fired, striking Hutchins and Souza.
Reports suggest crew members used the weapon for target practice earlier that morning.
A judge dismissed charges against Baldwin, and the actor sued. Now a judge has tossed the case.
Joining Nancy Grace today:
- Paul Szych – Former Police Commander; Author: “StopHimFromKillingThem” on Amazon Kindle; Twitter: @WorkplaceThreat; Screen Actors Guild-Eligible Actor
- Domenic Romano – NY Corporate Lawyer and Entertainment Attorney, Romano Law
- Dr. Shari Schwartz – Forensic Psychologist (Specializing in Capital Mitigation and Victim Advocacy); Author: “Criminal Behavior” and “Where Law and Psychology Intersect: Issues in Legal Psychology;” X: @TrialDoc”
- Karen L. Smith – Forensic Expert, Lecturer at the University of Florida, Host of ‘Shattered Souls’ Podcast; Twitter: @KarensForensic
- Dr. Michelle DuPre – Former Forensic Pathologist, Medical Examiner and Detective: Lexington County Sheriff’s Department, Author: “Homicide Investigation Field Guide” & “Investigating Child Abuse Field Guide;” Forensic Consultant
- Alexis Tereszcuk - CrimeOnline.com Investigative Reporter, Writer/Fact Checker, Lead Stories, X: @swimmie2009
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Just when you think the Alec Baldwin rust shooting controversy
is over, it's not. In the last days, Alec Baldwin's
lawsuit against New Mexico prosecutors is dismissed.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Alec Baldwin actually sued prosecutors and others out of Santa Fe.
But in the last days a judge saw through Alex
Baldwin's meritless lawsuit and dismissed the case, claiming, quote, no
significant action has been taken in one hundred and eighty
or more days in connection to these claims. After getting
(00:49):
his case dropped, that wasn't enough for Alec Baldwin, Baldwin
actually filed a lawsuit alleging prosecutors and investigators engaged in
malicious execution, abuse of process, intentional expiliation of evidence, and
violation of his civil rights.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
WHOA wait a minute.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Helena Hutchins was shot dead and you pull the trigger
and now you're claiming your rights were violated even though
your case has been dropped.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
I don't get it. What do we know about the case?
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Tragedy on the film set of a new Alec Baldwin movie,
and what police are calling a misfire of a prop
gun in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Sheriff's office there
has just confirmed it was Baldwin who fired the prop
gun that killed a forty two year old female director
of stratography, Helena Hutchins. The film's director, Jules Sousa, was
(01:49):
also hurt. This incident happened on the set of The
Western Rust. Now detectives are investigating what type of projectile
discharged from this gun.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
We were just hearing our friend Christine Johnson was CBS
what really happened. According to reports, the assistant yelled out
cold gun just before the shooting, which means the gun
was safe, that it was loaded with a blank.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
So how do we have a.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Woman, dad, another film person injured with me and all
Star panel to make sense of it all?
Speaker 1 (02:24):
If we can?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
With me? Dominate Romano lawyer joining us out of New
York at Romano Law dot Com is specialty entertainment law,
and I can tell you somebody's going to need a lawyer.
Doctor Sherry Schwartz forensic psychologists joining us.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Karen L.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Smith, forensic expert, host of Shattered Soul's podcast at Beerbonesforensics
dot Com Paul Zike joining US special guest, former police
commander and author of Stop Him From Killing Them on Amazon,
and he has lots of experience using firearms with blanks
during live action movie scenes like Terminator Salvation, doctor Michelle
(03:06):
Dupre forensic pathologists, former medical examiner, author of Homicide Investigation
Field Guide, and a former police detective. But first to
Alexis Terreschuk, crime online dot com investigative reporter joining us
from Hollywood, Alexis is what is getting folded into the.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Story, right or wrong?
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Is Alec Baldwin's history, his reputation for let me just
say hot headedness to put it euphemistically. If he thought
it was a blank and it should have been a blank,
then history aside.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
It was an accident.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
But how can it really be an accident when somebody
loaded this prop gun with real bullets?
Speaker 1 (03:55):
You know? Just started at the beginning, they.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
Were on a set in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It's
a western style movie. So they were sitting in a
church at an old church scene, and Alex Baldwin was
sitting in one of the pewes and he was practicing
what's called a cross draw, and so that would be
where the person takes your left hand and grabs the
gun out of the holster on the opposite hip, pulls
(04:17):
it across to fire. He was practicing this move standing
the cinematographer, which is the person that makes the movie beautiful.
This is the person that the director that films the scene.
She was standing in front of him, with the assistant
director standing limpid, with the director standing right behind her.
He was looking over her shoulder to see what it
would look like when Alex pulled the gun out. He
(04:40):
pulled it out of the side, points it at her
to show them, pulls the trigger, and it fires a
live round into her. Hits her in the stomach and actually,
believe goes through her and grazes the director sitting standing
right behind her.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Hush has pronounced dad at an Albuquerque hospital after being
rushed to the emergency room.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
You know what, I.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Always love playing nine one one calls for a jury
because it takes you back to what's really happening. Not
a description, not someone recounting what happened, but you're hearing
what really happened. Take a listen to the beginning of
that nine to one one call.
Speaker 5 (05:18):
We did watch the location of your emergency that we
need autic bonancas free grants.
Speaker 6 (05:25):
Right now, we've got the people shot on.
Speaker 5 (05:29):
You said, someone with shots two people accidental gunshots a
movie steps and Grant wondered it often with medical.
Speaker 6 (05:41):
Who are you calling?
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Clear the road?
Speaker 5 (05:50):
Emergency bonanza, people accidentally shot on a movie?
Speaker 6 (05:56):
Step live top gun We need out the immediately fanatic
free Okay, what is your name?
Speaker 4 (06:06):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 5 (06:07):
Mitchell?
Speaker 1 (06:09):
That Michelle?
Speaker 5 (06:10):
Where you're calling from?
Speaker 7 (06:12):
Five up?
Speaker 4 (06:14):
Don't hang up?
Speaker 5 (06:15):
Okay, hold on, drink.
Speaker 6 (06:16):
One second for somebody else is calling better? Everybody should
be can help us? Director in our camera manage woman.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Now you hear repeatedly the word accident accidentally throughout that.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
But is it an accident?
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Very often when you have, for instance, a d UI crash,
people go, well it was an accident, But was it
because the driver chooses to go to a bar to
order drinks, to drink to become legally in tixicated to
then get the car keys, walk to the car, get
in the car, crank up, reverse and drive out onto
(07:07):
the roads. That sounds pretty deliberate. So is it an accident?
Is it gross negligence? Well, take a listen to more
of that nine to one one call.
Speaker 8 (07:18):
So was it loaded with a real.
Speaker 5 (07:19):
Bullet or I cannot tell you that.
Speaker 6 (07:22):
Okay, we have two injuries from the movie. Gun suh.
We're getting out there already.
Speaker 9 (07:29):
Just down upon.
Speaker 6 (07:31):
Okay, I good see that yelled at me at lunch
because out about me vision can and yell at me.
He's a subtested gun to be responsible to.
Speaker 5 (07:47):
Answer how many no? No, no, I'm super hard injury.
Speaker 10 (07:52):
True.
Speaker 5 (07:52):
I was that, I know I was.
Speaker 6 (07:54):
We were hurting and it went off and I ran out.
We all ran out. They were being in the camera
woman and the director and the directors were claring the
road to come back. We're back on the web. We're
back in the town I called. We're back in the
western town.
Speaker 5 (08:14):
Is there any serious leadings? I don't know.
Speaker 6 (08:17):
I ran out of the building.
Speaker 5 (08:18):
But when Brian and I still have to go through these, Okay,
are they completely alert on the question?
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, believe it or not.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Even after Alec Baldwin's case was dropped, it's over, he
sues the prosecutors and investigators, claiming his rights were violated.
Does anybody remember the beautiful Young Mom? Senhematographer Helena Hutchins dead,
(08:57):
shot dead. Alec Baldwin pulled the trigger. The accident or negligence,
it doesn't matter. He pulled the trigger and now he
is claiming his rights were violated and sues. Look, I've
never believed Alec Baldwn intentionally shot Helena Hutchins.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
I think it was an accident.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
I think he thought there were prop bullets in the gun,
but he pointed the gun and pulled the trigger. Negligent, accident.
She's still dead. That said, his case was dropped, it's over.
But yet he goes so far as to sue the
prosecutors and investigators that they were all out to get him. Reminder,
(09:45):
this young mom is dead and you're suing because you
think your rights were violated.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Oh my stars.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Back to the facts of the case, paul'sake, Thank you
for being with us. What went Obviously there was a
live bullet and what should have been a prop gun.
Speaker 10 (10:04):
But what happened, Nancy. The only explanation for this is
a systemic breakdown in systems that are in place to
ensure that live ammunition is not present on the set.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Okay, now that was a lot of words. Paul's I
think you're saying somebody didn't do their job.
Speaker 10 (10:23):
Well, absolutely, somebody did not do their job and catastrophically
did not do that. There's no reason whatsoever for live
ammunition to be on the set of any set. Because
these weapons are capable of firing live rounds. They're not
really prop guns. They're deadly weapons being used as props.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Okay, hold on, right there, I want to make that distinction.
You're absolutely right. When look, I'm a trial lawyer, I'm
a legal expert.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
You're the expert in this world. When I say prop.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Gun, I mean they're using it as a prop. But
you're making a very fine, subtle, but important distinction. A
prompt gun is a fake gun. I don't think it
even can shoot, Is that right?
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Exactly?
Speaker 10 (11:09):
If you're talking about say it pop nice, correct, it
has a flat edge on it, It's incapable of cutting you.
These are things that are not deemed to be dangerous.
A prop gun is simply as utilized on set. Our
weapons that are capable of firing live ammunition, and therefore
accidentally live ammunition could be mixed with blank rounds. You know,
(11:32):
given time, this is just a disaster waiting to happen.
They need to move to true guns that are incapable
of chambering live ammunition. Until that happens, this has a
very strong chance of repeating itself.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Well, okay, tell me this. Paul's II. Guys with me.
Paul's I.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
He is a former police commander, He's an author screen
actors gil and has experience using blanks during live action
movie scenes where we all think they're shooting real guns.
If you suspend your disbelief in movies like his Terminator Salvation,
those aren't real guns. So why are they using a
(12:11):
real gun? To start with? Paul zike Ada mean to me,
having been forced to handle so many guns and so
many homicides, what moron wouldn't make sure that there were
blanks in the gun.
Speaker 10 (12:27):
It's hard to imagine that during the loading of the
weapon that that was not viewed very strictly as a
weapon is loaded. And also there's a chain of custody
issue here on the scene of Terminator Salvation. As we
would go out and we would conduct the battle scene,
if you will, in the middle of the night, we
would be handed directly from the armor, fully automatic weapons
(12:51):
and magazines fully loaded with blanks, and we would head
straight out to where these scene was to be shot,
and then we would engage in the seen you know,
five ten minutes later, and the weapon straight back to
the armor, all the ammunition back to the armor, all
the magazine back to the armor, and we would not
be able to touch those weapons again until the next scene.
(13:13):
So from a chaine of custody standpoint, I went directly
from the armor directly to my hand, my you know,
the co actor's hands that were with me, and that
was maintained very strictly.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Hold On, Paul, I've got to soak in everything you're saying,
because Dominic Romano a high profile lawyer joining us out
of New York's specialty entertainment law.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
And that's why Dominic's joining us today. Dominick, hold On, when.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
You heard Paul's like say, chain of custody, I immediately
thought of a serial murderer that I prosecuted.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
On one murder.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
We could get them on one and there ended up
I would say, three weeks before trial. I was just
looking at the evidence and I noticed that the bag
that contained the evidence wasn't signed. It had never been
signed by the homicide cop that picked it up from
it was DNA in there was blood from where it
(14:07):
had been taken and carried to the crime lab. It
wasn't written on the back. Did anybody tamper with it? No,
he just didn't put his initials. I'm like, oh, dear
Lord in Heaven, the chain is broken. This could be
attacked at trial. I had to go back out to
the jail, stand there and look at this killer while
he pulled his blood again. Then I carried it with
(14:28):
my investigator myself back to the crime lab to have
it retested.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Praise the Lord in Heaven. It was his DNA.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Long story short, that's chain of custody. Your case can
be lost. You can lose a serial killer because somebody
didn't keep the chain to preserve the integrity of the trial.
That's what I thought when Paul Zike said chain of custody.
But did you also hear him say dominic remino he
handed it back to the It sounded like he was
(14:56):
saying armor or armory.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
But I've been reading about this case.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
An arm er, armor er, who is the person in
charge of all the weapons, And I think.
Speaker 7 (15:07):
Paul is absolutely right. Look, no one should ever be
killed by a gun on a film set period. Those
are the words of Brandon Lee's sister Brandon Lee shot
on a film set in the early nineteen nineties. This
should not happen. There are established protocols, chains of command.
I mean, there appears to be some serious gross negligence
(15:31):
on that set to allow that to have that. That
is the appearance, And I don't know what evidence can
come out to rebut that presumption.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
A live round in well, as Paul's ike has corrected me,
it's not a prop gun.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
They were using real guns.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Hey, let me ask you a question, Paul z Iike,
explain the difference and what a blank looks like as
opposed to a live round a bullet And we're saying
live rounds, we're talking about a bullet.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
What's the difference. Can't you just look at them and
you can see the difference.
Speaker 10 (16:03):
In most cases, absolutely, it's very clear. You can see
the difference. In some types of calibers, say two two three,
if you will, that's sort an AR fifteen would shoot.
The blanks are kind of crimped at the end to
almost look like there's a bullet on the end of them.
But any sort of trained professional whatsoever, when you're handling
(16:26):
a blank, you know it's a blank. When it's a bullet,
you know it's a bullet. The blank does not have
a lead projectile or a steel projectile at the end
of the round. So at the end it's either flat
or it's slightly crimped to hold in the gunpowder, which
you know, the firearm usually needs the gunpowder to correctly
(16:48):
function the weapon and cycle the weapon. And that's one
of the reasons why blanks are used.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Okay, Paul's I really respect you, but you're going to
have to dumb me down for me, okay, because I
would have to put you through intensive training before you
took the stand because a lot of people do not
know what you just said. Just think about it and
think you there's a way you can say it in
more simple terms. What's the difference between a blank and
a lie bullet when you look at it? Speak English
(17:17):
Man in the meantime, Wait a minute, you mentioned Brandon Lee,
and you're absolutely right. We pulled sound of other cases
almost identical to this. This is not the first time
it's happened, Believe it or not, Tyler, could you roll
our cut forty four? Let's follow up on what Paul
Zike said about Brandon Lee.
Speaker 11 (17:36):
That's a bully comes found that killed Brandon Lee. Some
believe a piece of a proply without gunpowder and it
may have been left accidentally in the gun.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
The blank was fired at Brandon.
Speaker 11 (17:46):
Some feel let's shot out the properly, mortally wounding him.
Speaker 8 (17:49):
It was an actioning way to happen.
Speaker 11 (17:51):
The Crow crewmember we spoke with says that there were
many opportunities for an accident to happen. Are the working
conditions on the set of The Crow particularly bad? Threely
long hours, eighteen hour days back to back at times,
pushing ninety one hundred hours.
Speaker 5 (18:06):
A week and six day weeks way too much.
Speaker 11 (18:09):
Do you think that that over work, that exhaustion might
have resulted in this accident?
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Stage your conscious.
Speaker 7 (18:16):
Olive them were definitely not call.
Speaker 5 (18:18):
It could have been prevented.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
With better management.
Speaker 11 (18:23):
The publicist for the movie The Crow denies that the
working conditions were insane.
Speaker 12 (18:27):
Certainly, everyone was very tired and exhausted from the shoe,
but these are professionals and they're used to working conditions
like this.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Okay, guys, you were hearing our friends and Inside Edition,
and I want to follow up on what we're just
hearing with Alexis Tereschuk. I played that sound for a reason, Alexis,
because on the Alec Baldwin set of Rust, there apparently
were problems with working conditions. A group of the crew
had walked out I think the night before the claiming
(18:57):
that they had bad hotels. They were an hour away
from a hotel or motel and if they work late
into the night, they have to drive through I guess
the desert and a lot of them were actually sleeping
in their cars overnight. That's just some of the complaints
I've heard.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
But what are the other.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Complaints, if any, on the Alec Baldwin movie set.
Speaker 4 (19:18):
Well, there have been complaints that things were not safe quote.
But one of the person is being directly blamed for
a lot of the unfaked is when you were listening
to the nine one one call and you said you
heard the woman saying that he was yelling at me
things like that. This is the assistant director that they're
talking about. And this is the assistant director, David Halls,
who handed the gun to Baldwin and said this is
(19:42):
a cold gun. So what the people on the set
were saying is that Halls was not a responsble person.
He was very angry.
Speaker 9 (19:49):
He was making the job very difficult for everybody to do, and.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
They didn't trust him.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Wait a minute, you're saying David Halls was an assistant director. Yeah, okay,
Well what about the honor? Is she the one responsible
for all the weapons and the blanks or the bullets? Guys,
take another Listen to our cut forty three.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
This is about practically the same thing happening before. Listen.
Speaker 11 (20:14):
It was here at the Carrol Coast Studios in Wilmington,
North Carolina that actor Brandon Lee was filming The Crow.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Ironically, the film.
Speaker 11 (20:22):
Is about a man who dies and comes back to
life to avenge his death. Shortly after midnight last Tuesday,
Brandon Lee was preparing to film a routine action scene
in the script for him to get shot as he
walks through door carrying a bag of groceries. Michael Massey,
the actor doing the shooting, is reportedly devastated by Lee's
death and remains in seclusion. The Gunny was using was
(20:45):
supposed to be loaded with blanks from the camera's rule.
Speaker 13 (20:49):
Brandon Lee was performing for the last time.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
The first episodes of a reality show starring Alec Baldwin,
his wife and their seven children are hitting the airwaves now.
According to a string of PR specialists, no one can
imagine any advisor would have recommended the ball once agree
to a reality series in the very best of times,
(21:16):
let alone after the shooting death of cinematographer Helena Hutchins.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Why are you and Karen Smith?
Speaker 13 (21:24):
Well, we deal a lot with forensics in physics. When
we do a reconstruction, we use snippets of time and
sometimes that can be split seconds, and this includes trajectories
of projectiles, and this trajectory can generally be explained by
the reporting. Alec Baldwin was reported to be sitting at
a church pew to align a camera angle when the
gun was fired. Alena Hutchins then collapsed on the floor
(21:46):
and Joel's Susa was struck in the clavicles. That's an
upward trajectory, which means both Hutchins and Susa were standing
up when the event occurred. The projectile that perporated Helena's
body and subsequently struck Joel.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
In order for that to.
Speaker 13 (22:01):
Happen, the kinetic energy, which is energy as the result
of motion, would be very high. We're dealing with mass,
or the amount of matter in an object and energy
dispersion guns carry a high volume of energy in a
small space, and that from my experience, it tells me
that it was something other than just the paper or
elastic wadding from a blank round. That needs to be
(22:24):
confirmed by the EMMY and the investigators. But there are
reports of live ammunition bullets being on the set and
that particular gun allegedly being used for target practice that morning.
There's a lot of questions that needs to be answered
by the investigators and theme.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Again for the set being used as target practice. Paul Zeike,
that shouldn't be that you've got crew members out shooting bottles.
I think that that's coming out with live bullets and
use that same gun for a sane and a church
full of people.
Speaker 10 (23:00):
And Nancy, I just want to clarify the prior point,
so very simply, a blank is a shellcasing with gunpowder
in it with no bullet. A bullet is the same
exact thing with more gunpowder and a live bullet at
the end of it that is made to travel through
the barrel and exit the weapon. But back to what
(23:21):
you were saying at the Cardinal rule, it's been broken.
Whether you're whether you're involved in police training, or you're
involved in a movie set, keeping live ammunition away from
weapons that fire live ammunition and keeping weapons at fire
blanks away from those instances. And when you mix those
two together, the odds of somebody having a spare live
(23:43):
round in one of their pockets or you name it
is super high, and it sounds very sloppy, and it
just just opens the door for terrible things to happen.
And that's where the systemic breakdown and that controlled environment.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Well, I'm telling you, Paul's like, you're right. Super sloppy
is one way to put it. Gross negligence or unintentional
murder is another.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Way to put it. I think I hear dominant Ramano
jumping in go ahead.
Speaker 7 (24:11):
Yeah. Basically it's a catastrophic miscalculation. I think two people
here should be folks. We should focus on one is
the armor like this is only according to reports, her
second movie with jars Read and the assistant director Dave
Hauls you mentioned before. According to reports, he was fired
from a twenty nineteen production of Freedom's Past I first
(24:34):
time for a minor injury.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
WHOA why why white white?
Speaker 2 (24:38):
You got me drinking from the fire hydrant, which is
not a bad thing. It's too much at once. Hold on,
in the world, would you have somebody that was fired
off another similar job handling your weapon?
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Okay? Is that what you just said, dominic?
Speaker 10 (24:52):
Okay?
Speaker 7 (24:53):
Almost?
Speaker 13 (24:53):
So almost.
Speaker 7 (24:54):
The armorer is twenty four years old. The person handling
the weapons, it's only her film. She was just in
a podcast last month where she said, you know, she's
a bit nervous about her film, but it went well
her while there is apparently a famous armor okay, so
we have that an experienced armor number two, we have
the assistant director, one of the ad DP holes. Apparently,
(25:16):
according to a report, he was fired from its twenty
nineteen production. The movie was freedom passed after crew members
suffered guess what a minor injury when a gun unexpectedly.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Discharged dominate romano.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
The words similar transactions are jumping to mind. I mean,
this solidifies my thought that this is not an accident,
because an accident is when you totally don't see it coming.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
It's just like out of the blue.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
But if this guy, if it's correct, the ad had
a previous incident, for somebody was shot on a set.
Even if it was a minor injury, then you should
have seen you either new or should have known. Would
you agree with that dominant?
Speaker 7 (26:00):
They're going to be some serious questions to be asked,
and there have to be answers, And if we don't
have good answers, someone is either going to be involved
in a very expensive lawsuit or depending on what they
knew and when they knew it and how careless they were,
(26:21):
probably facing some time. The other issue you alluded to
earlier is, you know, cost cutting, it's rampant in the
industry right now, and the production company's decision not to
book the crew hotel rooms near the actual set, but
to have them travel an hour in each direction to
get to and from their accommodation, to have long hours
(26:44):
where people walked off the set earlier that day in protest.
So this is a combination of what turned out to
be a lethal combination at catastrophic calculation on the part
of the production government.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Well, you just said a mouthful in a.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Good way, between the armorer being an experience, the ad
having a prior similar transaction, and budget cuts problems amongst
the crew. Take a listen to our cut six that
from our friends at News Nation.
Speaker 12 (27:14):
Now let's start with the people responsible for handling a gun.
There are no ubiquitous rules across all film sets, but
generally there are some guidelines that they follow and here
into a budget.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
Budget usually plays a big role.
Speaker 12 (27:26):
In many sets, there are no fewer than three people
responsible for monitoring a weapon. Prop Mastercums in charge of
all crosts, is often supported by a safety officer and
a sub coordinator, and depending on the seat, you may
also need to bring in an armorer whose only job
is handling weapons.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
In the Last Days, the lawsuit filed by Alec Baldwin
TV movie Superstar against New Mexico prosecutors.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Has been dismissed.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
How did this whole case start anyway, doctor Dupree. I'm
sure you, like myself, have had to handle weapons in
front of jury's and I learned this from watching a
pro try cases. I would always pick the gun up,
holding it face down with a barrel pointing to the ground,
(28:33):
so the jury or anyone else would.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Not be alarmed.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
What you don't want to do is scare your jury.
I would walk in front of the jury holding the
weapon nose down, open the chamber, let them see me
check it, hold it up like I was examining it
through you know, at my eye level, so they could
see that it was empty and then shut it and
(28:58):
then give it to the witness without fail. Even if
it was a weapon that I knew was inoperable, that
was sp Why would that not occur on a movie set?
But describe how you're supposed to handle weapons exactly.
Speaker 9 (29:17):
Ancy, You described it perfectly. That is exactly what you
should do. And if you're giving a weapon to someone else,
normally you have the chamber open so that they can
also see and then you both check it and know
that it's empty or that the blanks are in it.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Tell me what you can discern about what Karen Smith,
forensics expert, just told us about the injuries.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
What happened, Nancy.
Speaker 8 (29:41):
Even though these are quote prop guns or blanks, they
can still obviously do devastating damage the wadding or whatever
they are filled with, even in a blank. But this
was not a blink. This was an actual projectile.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
And as we know, you mean a bullet speak English,
a bullet.
Speaker 9 (29:59):
Yes, yes, this is a bullet, and the.
Speaker 8 (30:02):
Caliber of that bullet of the gun is what is
going to determine how much damage is done. As She explained,
the higher the caliber, the more energy in that bullet,
and so the more damage done to the physical body.
And of course the location where that bullet enters the
body in this case was devastating.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
You know, another issue to doctor Sherry Schwartz.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
I've been on a lot of TV sets, obviously, and
movie sets for you know, cameos or some legal issue.
And I got to tell you, doctor Sherry Schwartz, a
movie set takes on a whole It's like you're in
a different world. Like when you go to the movies
and you sit down and it goes dark, your mind
takes you there when you're on a movie set. I've
(30:48):
never been on a single movie set that went on time.
You go till one or two o'clock in the morning,
it's pitch dark outside. You keep going until you get
the shot or you finish this scene, or whatever it's
called in movie world.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
I think that there is a suspended.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Fear you think you're at a movie set, like when
you go to Disneyland or when you're on vacation on
a cruise ship. You suspend your normal thinking it doesn't
seem real and you're not thinking, wow, there's a gun
I could get shot because it's quote just a movie,
it's not real. How do we let me just say,
(31:31):
suspend our disbelief, suspend rational rules of functioning when you're
on a movie set or in a movie, you know,
like in movies where there's some nut with a gun
and you hear a sound, but you don't think it's
real because you're in a movie.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
What happens in the human mind, doctor Sherry, Well, when you.
Speaker 14 (31:50):
Don't think that something is actually real, then you would
not calculate accurately what the potential risk are, right, And
so there is this gun on the set, but everybody thinks, oh,
it's just make believe. We're setting this up to film it.
Nobody's actually going.
Speaker 8 (32:10):
To get hurt. And so what happens mentally is.
Speaker 14 (32:13):
That you underestimate what the potential risks are. And what
happened here is an egregious underestimation, right, So for the
rest of us, that's to make believes maybe even for
the actor they know that they're just playing a role,
and everybody around them might know they're playing a role.
But there are people on the set who are responsible
(32:33):
for that gun and for taking that proper care and
knowing what the potential risks are?
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Hey, do you Alexis treshat Crime online dot Com investigative reporter,
you have heard Dominant Romano Paul's like, well, everyone on
the panel weighing in. But apparently there were a lot
of problems and a lot of disgruntled crew members. I
understand that one of the motels they had set them
up to stay overnight was at for the homeless and
(33:03):
there were drug addicts there.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
They were afraid to stay there. What was going on
on the set, Well.
Speaker 13 (33:09):
It seems like what they were trying to do was
make this.
Speaker 4 (33:12):
Film as cheaply as possible. Understandable, but they were putting
people's lives at risk. It was fifty hotels were fifty
miles away, so after working fourteen hour days, the crew
was having to drive over an hour to get to
their hotel. Then they would have to be back within
like six hours, so they would get almost no sleep
at all.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
But they were also saying that things.
Speaker 8 (33:31):
Were just not safe.
Speaker 4 (33:33):
There had been an incident a few days earlier that
one of the prop guns again prop done real gun,
had been accidentally fired, and so the crew had been
complaining to the producer saying this is not a safe
working environment, and they walked off the set. And so
Hollywood is very much a union business, but the producers
(33:57):
hired non union people to replace these nine union people.
That are not the people. That's not the armor, and
it's not the assistant director. And everybody's been talking there
at the line of protocol. You have so many steps
in the line of defense, so that when this gun
got to Alex Baldwin, at least two other people were
(34:17):
responsible for saying that it wasn't loaded.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
I mean, didn't somebody even scream out cold gun. I
mean they have to yell it out, you know what
you were just saying. I know so many times for
different shoots. I don't know who he is that carries
that comes over and they have to do it a
certain way. They have to say a certain thing, and
(34:41):
they say it really loudly.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
I don't know why, but I'm.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Sure there's a reason for it, just like they would
yell out cold gun and.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
Everybody would hear it.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
But I guess they yelled it out without checking alexis
And there are reports that.
Speaker 4 (34:55):
Yes, so there were three guns that were set up
and they were put on a table out the church set.
And this is because of COVID nineteen protocols, so not
a lot of people are in the if it's an
enclosed set, they're not there three guns. So the assistant
director picked it up. Dave Halls as the other guy said,
you know, has a history of a lot of accidents
(35:16):
on sets, and handed it to volvement and he is
the one that yelled out, cold gun. There's no nobody
has said there's so many people have spoken to the
police on the set, so many of the other crew members,
and they said they didn't know whether it actually was
empty or not. And these guns were used at lunch.
This is a post lunch break, so they broke for
(35:38):
lunch at twelve thirty. They come back after lunch. During
that lunchtime, there are reports that those crew members were
using this gun and other guns to shoot beer bottles
out in the desert area and using it as target practice.
So there could have been alive and there said there
were lots of live ammunition. Nobody was told they couldn't
bring live ammunition on sets.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
That's an o thing that you live around on set.
Speaker 4 (36:03):
That's a big problem here.
Speaker 10 (36:04):
And I think, yeah, I'd like to jump in there.
It's it's it's simply a breakdown of the security of
the scene. The only people there that our arms should
be security personnel. And you know, in my years, my
decade of fighting to keep workplaces safe and to stop
stalking offenders from killing victims, I can tell you one thing,
(36:27):
and that is nobody thinks the unthinkable is going to happen.
It's a matter of just human thinking. They think that, well,
that happened to somebody else, that didn't happen to me.
And because this is somewhat of a rare occurrence on
a set, people got laxed, they got lacka days hole
about fundamental when it comes to shooting a scene such
(36:48):
as this. And just like at any workplace, this is
a workplace out in the middle of the desert, just
like it would be in an office building. Those protocols
broke down and people at work thing to do the
right thing for the right reasons, had a catastrophic, devastating
thing happen, because we as human beings think, well, if
(37:09):
it hasn't happened, it won't happen. And that's just not
the reality of life when it comes with dangerous events.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
You know, Alec Baldwin is a great, great actor. A
lot of people don't like him because he rubs him
the wrong way with his jokes, with his actions with
you know, just a history of comments and behavior that
irritates some people. But I can tell you this, when
(37:37):
I saw the photos of him literally doubled over in grief, I.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Don't think that was acting. I think that was real.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
There's one thing I know about this case. When you
think it's over, it rises up again. It seemingly won't
go away. What will Alec Baldwin do next? If you're
listening like Baldwin, don't kick a gift horse in the mouth,
take the dismissal and run and.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Never go back. We wait as justice unfolds. Goodbye, friend,
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Just when you think the Alec Baldwin rust shooting controversy
is over, it's not. In the last days, Alec Baldwin's
lawsuit against New Mexico prosecutors is dismissed.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Alec Baldwin actually sued prosecutors and others out of Santa Fe.
But in the last days a judge saw through Alex
Baldwin's meritless lawsuit and dismissed the case, claiming, quote, no
significant action has been taken in one hundred and eighty
or more days in connection to these claims. After getting
(00:49):
his case dropped, that wasn't enough for Alec Baldwin, Baldwin
actually filed a lawsuit alleging prosecutors and investigators engaged in
malicious execution, abuse of process, intentional expiliation of evidence, and
violation of his civil rights.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
WHOA wait a minute.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Helena Hutchins was shot dead and you pull the trigger
and now you're claiming your rights were violated even though
your case has been dropped.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
I don't get it. What do we know about the case?
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Tragedy on the film set of a new Alec Baldwin movie,
and what police are calling a misfire of a prop
gun in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Sheriff's office there
has just confirmed it was Baldwin who fired the prop
gun that killed a forty two year old female director
of stratography, Helena Hutchins. The film's director, Jules Sousa, was
(01:49):
also hurt. This incident happened on the set of The
Western Rust. Now detectives are investigating what type of projectile
discharged from this gun.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
We were just hearing our friend Christine Johnson was CBS
what really happened. According to reports, the assistant yelled out
cold gun just before the shooting, which means the gun
was safe, that it was loaded with a blank.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
So how do we have a.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Woman, dad, another film person injured with me and all
Star panel to make sense of it all?
Speaker 1 (02:24):
If we can?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
With me? Dominate Romano lawyer joining us out of New
York at Romano Law dot Com is specialty entertainment law,
and I can tell you somebody's going to need a lawyer.
Doctor Sherry Schwartz forensic psychologists joining us.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Karen L.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Smith, forensic expert, host of Shattered Soul's podcast at Beerbonesforensics
dot Com Paul Zike joining US special guest, former police
commander and author of Stop Him From Killing Them on Amazon,
and he has lots of experience using firearms with blanks
during live action movie scenes like Terminator Salvation, doctor Michelle
(03:06):
Dupre forensic pathologists, former medical examiner, author of Homicide Investigation
Field Guide, and a former police detective. But first to
Alexis Terreschuk, crime online dot com investigative reporter joining us
from Hollywood, Alexis is what is getting folded into the.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Story, right or wrong?
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Is Alec Baldwin's history, his reputation for let me just
say hot headedness to put it euphemistically. If he thought
it was a blank and it should have been a blank,
then history aside.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
It was an accident.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
But how can it really be an accident when somebody
loaded this prop gun with real bullets?
Speaker 1 (03:55):
You know? Just started at the beginning, they.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
Were on a set in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It's
a western style movie. So they were sitting in a
church at an old church scene, and Alex Baldwin was
sitting in one of the pewes and he was practicing
what's called a cross draw, and so that would be
where the person takes your left hand and grabs the
gun out of the holster on the opposite hip, pulls
(04:17):
it across to fire. He was practicing this move standing
the cinematographer, which is the person that makes the movie beautiful.
This is the person that the director that films the scene.
She was standing in front of him, with the assistant
director standing limpid, with the director standing right behind her.
He was looking over her shoulder to see what it
would look like when Alex pulled the gun out. He
(04:40):
pulled it out of the side, points it at her
to show them, pulls the trigger, and it fires a
live round into her. Hits her in the stomach and actually,
believe goes through her and grazes the director sitting standing
right behind her.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Hush has pronounced dad at an Albuquerque hospital after being
rushed to the emergency room.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
You know what, I.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Always love playing nine one one calls for a jury
because it takes you back to what's really happening. Not
a description, not someone recounting what happened, but you're hearing
what really happened. Take a listen to the beginning of
that nine to one one call.
Speaker 5 (05:18):
We did watch the location of your emergency that we
need autic bonancas free grants.
Speaker 6 (05:25):
Right now, we've got the people shot on.
Speaker 5 (05:29):
You said, someone with shots two people accidental gunshots a
movie steps and Grant wondered it often with medical.
Speaker 6 (05:41):
Who are you calling?
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Clear the road?
Speaker 5 (05:50):
Emergency bonanza, people accidentally shot on a movie?
Speaker 6 (05:56):
Step live top gun We need out the immediately fanatic
free Okay, what is your name?
Speaker 4 (06:06):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 5 (06:07):
Mitchell?
Speaker 1 (06:09):
That Michelle?
Speaker 5 (06:10):
Where you're calling from?
Speaker 7 (06:12):
Five up?
Speaker 4 (06:14):
Don't hang up?
Speaker 5 (06:15):
Okay, hold on, drink.
Speaker 6 (06:16):
One second for somebody else is calling better? Everybody should
be can help us? Director in our camera manage woman.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Now you hear repeatedly the word accident accidentally throughout that.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
But is it an accident?
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Very often when you have, for instance, a d UI crash,
people go, well it was an accident, But was it
because the driver chooses to go to a bar to
order drinks, to drink to become legally in tixicated to
then get the car keys, walk to the car, get
in the car, crank up, reverse and drive out onto
(07:07):
the roads. That sounds pretty deliberate. So is it an accident?
Is it gross negligence? Well, take a listen to more
of that nine to one one call.
Speaker 8 (07:18):
So was it loaded with a real.
Speaker 5 (07:19):
Bullet or I cannot tell you that.
Speaker 6 (07:22):
Okay, we have two injuries from the movie. Gun suh.
We're getting out there already.
Speaker 9 (07:29):
Just down upon.
Speaker 6 (07:31):
Okay, I good see that yelled at me at lunch
because out about me vision can and yell at me.
He's a subtested gun to be responsible to.
Speaker 5 (07:47):
Answer how many no? No, no, I'm super hard injury.
Speaker 10 (07:52):
True.
Speaker 5 (07:52):
I was that, I know I was.
Speaker 6 (07:54):
We were hurting and it went off and I ran out.
We all ran out. They were being in the camera
woman and the director and the directors were claring the
road to come back. We're back on the web. We're
back in the town I called. We're back in the
western town.
Speaker 5 (08:14):
Is there any serious leadings? I don't know.
Speaker 6 (08:17):
I ran out of the building.
Speaker 5 (08:18):
But when Brian and I still have to go through these, Okay,
are they completely alert on the question?
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, believe it or not.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Even after Alec Baldwin's case was dropped, it's over, he
sues the prosecutors and investigators, claiming his rights were violated.
Does anybody remember the beautiful Young Mom? Senhematographer Helena Hutchins dead,
(08:57):
shot dead. Alec Baldwin pulled the trigger. The accident or negligence,
it doesn't matter. He pulled the trigger and now he
is claiming his rights were violated and sues. Look, I've
never believed Alec Baldwn intentionally shot Helena Hutchins.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
I think it was an accident.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
I think he thought there were prop bullets in the gun,
but he pointed the gun and pulled the trigger. Negligent, accident.
She's still dead. That said, his case was dropped, it's over.
But yet he goes so far as to sue the
prosecutors and investigators that they were all out to get him. Reminder,
(09:45):
this young mom is dead and you're suing because you
think your rights were violated.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Oh my stars.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Back to the facts of the case, paul'sake, Thank you
for being with us. What went Obviously there was a
live bullet and what should have been a prop gun.
Speaker 10 (10:04):
But what happened, Nancy. The only explanation for this is
a systemic breakdown in systems that are in place to
ensure that live ammunition is not present on the set.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Okay, now that was a lot of words. Paul's I
think you're saying somebody didn't do their job.
Speaker 10 (10:23):
Well, absolutely, somebody did not do their job and catastrophically
did not do that. There's no reason whatsoever for live
ammunition to be on the set of any set. Because
these weapons are capable of firing live rounds. They're not
really prop guns. They're deadly weapons being used as props.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Okay, hold on, right there, I want to make that distinction.
You're absolutely right. When look, I'm a trial lawyer, I'm
a legal expert.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
You're the expert in this world. When I say prop.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Gun, I mean they're using it as a prop. But
you're making a very fine, subtle, but important distinction. A
prompt gun is a fake gun. I don't think it
even can shoot, Is that right?
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Exactly?
Speaker 10 (11:09):
If you're talking about say it pop nice, correct, it
has a flat edge on it, It's incapable of cutting you.
These are things that are not deemed to be dangerous.
A prop gun is simply as utilized on set. Our
weapons that are capable of firing live ammunition, and therefore
accidentally live ammunition could be mixed with blank rounds. You know,
(11:32):
given time, this is just a disaster waiting to happen.
They need to move to true guns that are incapable
of chambering live ammunition. Until that happens, this has a
very strong chance of repeating itself.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Well, okay, tell me this. Paul's II. Guys with me.
Paul's I.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
He is a former police commander, He's an author screen
actors gil and has experience using blanks during live action
movie scenes where we all think they're shooting real guns.
If you suspend your disbelief in movies like his Terminator Salvation,
those aren't real guns. So why are they using a
(12:11):
real gun? To start with? Paul zike Ada mean to me,
having been forced to handle so many guns and so
many homicides, what moron wouldn't make sure that there were
blanks in the gun.
Speaker 10 (12:27):
It's hard to imagine that during the loading of the
weapon that that was not viewed very strictly as a
weapon is loaded. And also there's a chain of custody
issue here on the scene of Terminator Salvation. As we
would go out and we would conduct the battle scene,
if you will, in the middle of the night, we
would be handed directly from the armor, fully automatic weapons
(12:51):
and magazines fully loaded with blanks, and we would head
straight out to where these scene was to be shot,
and then we would engage in the seen you know,
five ten minutes later, and the weapon straight back to
the armor, all the ammunition back to the armor, all
the magazine back to the armor, and we would not
be able to touch those weapons again until the next scene.
(13:13):
So from a chaine of custody standpoint, I went directly
from the armor directly to my hand, my you know,
the co actor's hands that were with me, and that
was maintained very strictly.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Hold On, Paul, I've got to soak in everything you're saying,
because Dominic Romano a high profile lawyer joining us out
of New York's specialty entertainment law.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
And that's why Dominic's joining us today. Dominick, hold On, when.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
You heard Paul's like say, chain of custody, I immediately
thought of a serial murderer that I prosecuted.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
On one murder.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
We could get them on one and there ended up
I would say, three weeks before trial. I was just
looking at the evidence and I noticed that the bag
that contained the evidence wasn't signed. It had never been
signed by the homicide cop that picked it up from
it was DNA in there was blood from where it
(14:07):
had been taken and carried to the crime lab. It
wasn't written on the back. Did anybody tamper with it? No,
he just didn't put his initials. I'm like, oh, dear
Lord in Heaven, the chain is broken. This could be
attacked at trial. I had to go back out to
the jail, stand there and look at this killer while
he pulled his blood again. Then I carried it with
(14:28):
my investigator myself back to the crime lab to have
it retested.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Praise the Lord in Heaven. It was his DNA.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Long story short, that's chain of custody. Your case can
be lost. You can lose a serial killer because somebody
didn't keep the chain to preserve the integrity of the trial.
That's what I thought when Paul Zike said chain of custody.
But did you also hear him say dominic remino he
handed it back to the It sounded like he was
(14:56):
saying armor or armory.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
But I've been reading about this case.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
An arm er, armor er, who is the person in
charge of all the weapons, And I think.
Speaker 7 (15:07):
Paul is absolutely right. Look, no one should ever be
killed by a gun on a film set period. Those
are the words of Brandon Lee's sister Brandon Lee shot
on a film set in the early nineteen nineties. This
should not happen. There are established protocols, chains of command.
I mean, there appears to be some serious gross negligence
(15:31):
on that set to allow that to have that. That
is the appearance, And I don't know what evidence can
come out to rebut that presumption.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
A live round in well, as Paul's ike has corrected me,
it's not a prop gun.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
They were using real guns.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Hey, let me ask you a question, Paul z Iike,
explain the difference and what a blank looks like as
opposed to a live round a bullet And we're saying
live rounds, we're talking about a bullet.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
What's the difference. Can't you just look at them and
you can see the difference.
Speaker 10 (16:03):
In most cases, absolutely, it's very clear. You can see
the difference. In some types of calibers, say two two three,
if you will, that's sort an AR fifteen would shoot.
The blanks are kind of crimped at the end to
almost look like there's a bullet on the end of them.
But any sort of trained professional whatsoever, when you're handling
(16:26):
a blank, you know it's a blank. When it's a bullet,
you know it's a bullet. The blank does not have
a lead projectile or a steel projectile at the end
of the round. So at the end it's either flat
or it's slightly crimped to hold in the gunpowder, which
you know, the firearm usually needs the gunpowder to correctly
(16:48):
function the weapon and cycle the weapon. And that's one
of the reasons why blanks are used.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Okay, Paul's I really respect you, but you're going to
have to dumb me down for me, okay, because I
would have to put you through intensive training before you
took the stand because a lot of people do not
know what you just said. Just think about it and
think you there's a way you can say it in
more simple terms. What's the difference between a blank and
a lie bullet when you look at it? Speak English
(17:17):
Man in the meantime, Wait a minute, you mentioned Brandon Lee,
and you're absolutely right. We pulled sound of other cases
almost identical to this. This is not the first time
it's happened, Believe it or not, Tyler, could you roll
our cut forty four? Let's follow up on what Paul
Zike said about Brandon Lee.
Speaker 11 (17:36):
That's a bully comes found that killed Brandon Lee. Some
believe a piece of a proply without gunpowder and it
may have been left accidentally in the gun.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
The blank was fired at Brandon.
Speaker 11 (17:46):
Some feel let's shot out the properly, mortally wounding him.
Speaker 8 (17:49):
It was an actioning way to happen.
Speaker 11 (17:51):
The Crow crewmember we spoke with says that there were
many opportunities for an accident to happen. Are the working
conditions on the set of The Crow particularly bad? Threely
long hours, eighteen hour days back to back at times,
pushing ninety one hundred hours.
Speaker 5 (18:06):
A week and six day weeks way too much.
Speaker 11 (18:09):
Do you think that that over work, that exhaustion might
have resulted in this accident?
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Stage your conscious.
Speaker 7 (18:16):
Olive them were definitely not call.
Speaker 5 (18:18):
It could have been prevented.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
With better management.
Speaker 11 (18:23):
The publicist for the movie The Crow denies that the
working conditions were insane.
Speaker 12 (18:27):
Certainly, everyone was very tired and exhausted from the shoe,
but these are professionals and they're used to working conditions
like this.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Okay, guys, you were hearing our friends and Inside Edition,
and I want to follow up on what we're just
hearing with Alexis Tereschuk. I played that sound for a reason, Alexis,
because on the Alec Baldwin set of Rust, there apparently
were problems with working conditions. A group of the crew
had walked out I think the night before the claiming
(18:57):
that they had bad hotels. They were an hour away
from a hotel or motel and if they work late
into the night, they have to drive through I guess
the desert and a lot of them were actually sleeping
in their cars overnight. That's just some of the complaints
I've heard.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
But what are the other.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Complaints, if any, on the Alec Baldwin movie set.
Speaker 4 (19:18):
Well, there have been complaints that things were not safe quote.
But one of the person is being directly blamed for
a lot of the unfaked is when you were listening
to the nine one one call and you said you
heard the woman saying that he was yelling at me
things like that. This is the assistant director that they're
talking about. And this is the assistant director, David Halls,
who handed the gun to Baldwin and said this is
(19:42):
a cold gun. So what the people on the set
were saying is that Halls was not a responsble person.
He was very angry.
Speaker 9 (19:49):
He was making the job very difficult for everybody to do, and.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
They didn't trust him.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Wait a minute, you're saying David Halls was an assistant director. Yeah, okay,
Well what about the honor? Is she the one responsible
for all the weapons and the blanks or the bullets? Guys,
take another Listen to our cut forty three.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
This is about practically the same thing happening before. Listen.
Speaker 11 (20:14):
It was here at the Carrol Coast Studios in Wilmington,
North Carolina that actor Brandon Lee was filming The Crow.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Ironically, the film.
Speaker 11 (20:22):
Is about a man who dies and comes back to
life to avenge his death. Shortly after midnight last Tuesday,
Brandon Lee was preparing to film a routine action scene
in the script for him to get shot as he
walks through door carrying a bag of groceries. Michael Massey,
the actor doing the shooting, is reportedly devastated by Lee's
death and remains in seclusion. The Gunny was using was
(20:45):
supposed to be loaded with blanks from the camera's rule.
Speaker 13 (20:49):
Brandon Lee was performing for the last time.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
The first episodes of a reality show starring Alec Baldwin,
his wife and their seven children are hitting the airwaves now.
According to a string of PR specialists, no one can
imagine any advisor would have recommended the ball once agree
to a reality series in the very best of times,
(21:16):
let alone after the shooting death of cinematographer Helena Hutchins.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Why are you and Karen Smith?
Speaker 13 (21:24):
Well, we deal a lot with forensics in physics. When
we do a reconstruction, we use snippets of time and
sometimes that can be split seconds, and this includes trajectories
of projectiles, and this trajectory can generally be explained by
the reporting. Alec Baldwin was reported to be sitting at
a church pew to align a camera angle when the
gun was fired. Alena Hutchins then collapsed on the floor
(21:46):
and Joel's Susa was struck in the clavicles. That's an
upward trajectory, which means both Hutchins and Susa were standing
up when the event occurred. The projectile that perporated Helena's
body and subsequently struck Joel.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
In order for that to.
Speaker 13 (22:01):
Happen, the kinetic energy, which is energy as the result
of motion, would be very high. We're dealing with mass,
or the amount of matter in an object and energy
dispersion guns carry a high volume of energy in a
small space, and that from my experience, it tells me
that it was something other than just the paper or
elastic wadding from a blank round. That needs to be
(22:24):
confirmed by the EMMY and the investigators. But there are
reports of live ammunition bullets being on the set and
that particular gun allegedly being used for target practice that morning.
There's a lot of questions that needs to be answered
by the investigators and theme.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Again for the set being used as target practice. Paul Zeike,
that shouldn't be that you've got crew members out shooting bottles.
I think that that's coming out with live bullets and
use that same gun for a sane and a church
full of people.
Speaker 10 (23:00):
And Nancy, I just want to clarify the prior point,
so very simply, a blank is a shellcasing with gunpowder
in it with no bullet. A bullet is the same
exact thing with more gunpowder and a live bullet at
the end of it that is made to travel through
the barrel and exit the weapon. But back to what
(23:21):
you were saying at the Cardinal rule, it's been broken.
Whether you're whether you're involved in police training, or you're
involved in a movie set, keeping live ammunition away from
weapons that fire live ammunition and keeping weapons at fire
blanks away from those instances. And when you mix those
two together, the odds of somebody having a spare live
(23:43):
round in one of their pockets or you name it
is super high, and it sounds very sloppy, and it
just just opens the door for terrible things to happen.
And that's where the systemic breakdown and that controlled environment.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Well, I'm telling you, Paul's like, you're right. Super sloppy
is one way to put it. Gross negligence or unintentional
murder is another.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Way to put it. I think I hear dominant Ramano
jumping in go ahead.
Speaker 7 (24:11):
Yeah. Basically it's a catastrophic miscalculation. I think two people
here should be folks. We should focus on one is
the armor like this is only according to reports, her
second movie with jars Read and the assistant director Dave
Hauls you mentioned before. According to reports, he was fired
from a twenty nineteen production of Freedom's Past I first
(24:34):
time for a minor injury.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
WHOA why why white white?
Speaker 2 (24:38):
You got me drinking from the fire hydrant, which is
not a bad thing. It's too much at once. Hold on,
in the world, would you have somebody that was fired
off another similar job handling your weapon?
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Okay? Is that what you just said, dominic?
Speaker 10 (24:52):
Okay?
Speaker 7 (24:53):
Almost?
Speaker 13 (24:53):
So almost.
Speaker 7 (24:54):
The armorer is twenty four years old. The person handling
the weapons, it's only her film. She was just in
a podcast last month where she said, you know, she's
a bit nervous about her film, but it went well
her while there is apparently a famous armor okay, so
we have that an experienced armor number two, we have
the assistant director, one of the ad DP holes. Apparently,
(25:16):
according to a report, he was fired from its twenty
nineteen production. The movie was freedom passed after crew members
suffered guess what a minor injury when a gun unexpectedly.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Discharged dominate romano.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
The words similar transactions are jumping to mind. I mean,
this solidifies my thought that this is not an accident,
because an accident is when you totally don't see it coming.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
It's just like out of the blue.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
But if this guy, if it's correct, the ad had
a previous incident, for somebody was shot on a set.
Even if it was a minor injury, then you should
have seen you either new or should have known. Would
you agree with that dominant?
Speaker 7 (26:00):
They're going to be some serious questions to be asked,
and there have to be answers, And if we don't
have good answers, someone is either going to be involved
in a very expensive lawsuit or depending on what they
knew and when they knew it and how careless they were,
(26:21):
probably facing some time. The other issue you alluded to
earlier is, you know, cost cutting, it's rampant in the
industry right now, and the production company's decision not to
book the crew hotel rooms near the actual set, but
to have them travel an hour in each direction to
get to and from their accommodation, to have long hours
(26:44):
where people walked off the set earlier that day in protest.
So this is a combination of what turned out to
be a lethal combination at catastrophic calculation on the part
of the production government.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Well, you just said a mouthful in a.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Good way, between the armorer being an experience, the ad
having a prior similar transaction, and budget cuts problems amongst
the crew. Take a listen to our cut six that
from our friends at News Nation.
Speaker 12 (27:14):
Now let's start with the people responsible for handling a gun.
There are no ubiquitous rules across all film sets, but
generally there are some guidelines that they follow and here
into a budget.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
Budget usually plays a big role.
Speaker 12 (27:26):
In many sets, there are no fewer than three people
responsible for monitoring a weapon. Prop Mastercums in charge of
all crosts, is often supported by a safety officer and
a sub coordinator, and depending on the seat, you may
also need to bring in an armorer whose only job
is handling weapons.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
In the Last Days, the lawsuit filed by Alec Baldwin
TV movie Superstar against New Mexico prosecutors.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Has been dismissed.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
How did this whole case start anyway, doctor Dupree. I'm
sure you, like myself, have had to handle weapons in
front of jury's and I learned this from watching a
pro try cases. I would always pick the gun up,
holding it face down with a barrel pointing to the ground,
(28:33):
so the jury or anyone else would.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Not be alarmed.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
What you don't want to do is scare your jury.
I would walk in front of the jury holding the
weapon nose down, open the chamber, let them see me
check it, hold it up like I was examining it
through you know, at my eye level, so they could
see that it was empty and then shut it and
(28:58):
then give it to the witness without fail. Even if
it was a weapon that I knew was inoperable, that
was sp Why would that not occur on a movie set?
But describe how you're supposed to handle weapons exactly.
Speaker 9 (29:17):
Ancy, You described it perfectly. That is exactly what you
should do. And if you're giving a weapon to someone else,
normally you have the chamber open so that they can
also see and then you both check it and know
that it's empty or that the blanks are in it.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Tell me what you can discern about what Karen Smith,
forensics expert, just told us about the injuries.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
What happened, Nancy.
Speaker 8 (29:41):
Even though these are quote prop guns or blanks, they
can still obviously do devastating damage the wadding or whatever
they are filled with, even in a blank. But this
was not a blink. This was an actual projectile.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
And as we know, you mean a bullet speak English,
a bullet.
Speaker 9 (29:59):
Yes, yes, this is a bullet, and the.
Speaker 8 (30:02):
Caliber of that bullet of the gun is what is
going to determine how much damage is done. As She explained,
the higher the caliber, the more energy in that bullet,
and so the more damage done to the physical body.
And of course the location where that bullet enters the
body in this case was devastating.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
You know, another issue to doctor Sherry Schwartz.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
I've been on a lot of TV sets, obviously, and
movie sets for you know, cameos or some legal issue.
And I got to tell you, doctor Sherry Schwartz, a
movie set takes on a whole It's like you're in
a different world. Like when you go to the movies
and you sit down and it goes dark, your mind
takes you there when you're on a movie set. I've
(30:48):
never been on a single movie set that went on time.
You go till one or two o'clock in the morning,
it's pitch dark outside. You keep going until you get
the shot or you finish this scene, or whatever it's
called in movie world.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
I think that there is a suspended.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Fear you think you're at a movie set, like when
you go to Disneyland or when you're on vacation on
a cruise ship. You suspend your normal thinking it doesn't
seem real and you're not thinking, wow, there's a gun
I could get shot because it's quote just a movie,
it's not real. How do we let me just say,
(31:31):
suspend our disbelief, suspend rational rules of functioning when you're
on a movie set or in a movie, you know,
like in movies where there's some nut with a gun
and you hear a sound, but you don't think it's
real because you're in a movie.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
What happens in the human mind, doctor Sherry, Well, when you.
Speaker 14 (31:50):
Don't think that something is actually real, then you would
not calculate accurately what the potential risk are, right, And
so there is this gun on the set, but everybody thinks, oh,
it's just make believe. We're setting this up to film it.
Nobody's actually going.
Speaker 8 (32:10):
To get hurt. And so what happens mentally is.
Speaker 14 (32:13):
That you underestimate what the potential risks are. And what
happened here is an egregious underestimation, right, So for the
rest of us, that's to make believes maybe even for
the actor they know that they're just playing a role,
and everybody around them might know they're playing a role.
But there are people on the set who are responsible
(32:33):
for that gun and for taking that proper care and
knowing what the potential risks are?
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Hey, do you Alexis treshat Crime online dot Com investigative reporter,
you have heard Dominant Romano Paul's like, well, everyone on
the panel weighing in. But apparently there were a lot
of problems and a lot of disgruntled crew members. I
understand that one of the motels they had set them
up to stay overnight was at for the homeless and
(33:03):
there were drug addicts there.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
They were afraid to stay there. What was going on
on the set, Well.
Speaker 13 (33:09):
It seems like what they were trying to do was
make this.
Speaker 4 (33:12):
Film as cheaply as possible. Understandable, but they were putting
people's lives at risk. It was fifty hotels were fifty
miles away, so after working fourteen hour days, the crew
was having to drive over an hour to get to
their hotel. Then they would have to be back within
like six hours, so they would get almost no sleep
at all.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
But they were also saying that things.
Speaker 8 (33:31):
Were just not safe.
Speaker 4 (33:33):
There had been an incident a few days earlier that
one of the prop guns again prop done real gun,
had been accidentally fired, and so the crew had been
complaining to the producer saying this is not a safe
working environment, and they walked off the set. And so
Hollywood is very much a union business, but the producers
(33:57):
hired non union people to replace these nine union people.
That are not the people. That's not the armor, and
it's not the assistant director. And everybody's been talking there
at the line of protocol. You have so many steps
in the line of defense, so that when this gun
got to Alex Baldwin, at least two other people were
(34:17):
responsible for saying that it wasn't loaded.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
I mean, didn't somebody even scream out cold gun. I
mean they have to yell it out, you know what
you were just saying. I know so many times for
different shoots. I don't know who he is that carries
that comes over and they have to do it a
certain way. They have to say a certain thing, and
(34:41):
they say it really loudly.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
I don't know why, but I'm.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Sure there's a reason for it, just like they would
yell out cold gun and.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
Everybody would hear it.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
But I guess they yelled it out without checking alexis
And there are reports that.
Speaker 4 (34:55):
Yes, so there were three guns that were set up
and they were put on a table out the church set.
And this is because of COVID nineteen protocols, so not
a lot of people are in the if it's an
enclosed set, they're not there three guns. So the assistant
director picked it up. Dave Halls as the other guy said,
you know, has a history of a lot of accidents
(35:16):
on sets, and handed it to volvement and he is
the one that yelled out, cold gun. There's no nobody
has said there's so many people have spoken to the
police on the set, so many of the other crew members,
and they said they didn't know whether it actually was
empty or not. And these guns were used at lunch.
This is a post lunch break, so they broke for
(35:38):
lunch at twelve thirty. They come back after lunch. During
that lunchtime, there are reports that those crew members were
using this gun and other guns to shoot beer bottles
out in the desert area and using it as target practice.
So there could have been alive and there said there
were lots of live ammunition. Nobody was told they couldn't
bring live ammunition on sets.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
That's an o thing that you live around on set.
Speaker 4 (36:03):
That's a big problem here.
Speaker 10 (36:04):
And I think, yeah, I'd like to jump in there.
It's it's it's simply a breakdown of the security of
the scene. The only people there that our arms should
be security personnel. And you know, in my years, my
decade of fighting to keep workplaces safe and to stop
stalking offenders from killing victims, I can tell you one thing,
(36:27):
and that is nobody thinks the unthinkable is going to happen.
It's a matter of just human thinking. They think that, well,
that happened to somebody else, that didn't happen to me.
And because this is somewhat of a rare occurrence on
a set, people got laxed, they got lacka days hole
about fundamental when it comes to shooting a scene such
(36:48):
as this. And just like at any workplace, this is
a workplace out in the middle of the desert, just
like it would be in an office building. Those protocols
broke down and people at work thing to do the
right thing for the right reasons, had a catastrophic, devastating
thing happen, because we as human beings think, well, if
(37:09):
it hasn't happened, it won't happen. And that's just not
the reality of life when it comes with dangerous events.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
You know, Alec Baldwin is a great, great actor. A
lot of people don't like him because he rubs him
the wrong way with his jokes, with his actions with
you know, just a history of comments and behavior that
irritates some people. But I can tell you this, when
(37:37):
I saw the photos of him literally doubled over in grief, I.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Don't think that was acting. I think that was real.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
There's one thing I know about this case. When you
think it's over, it rises up again. It seemingly won't
go away. What will Alec Baldwin do next? If you're
listening like Baldwin, don't kick a gift horse in the mouth,
take the dismissal and run and.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Never go back. We wait as justice unfolds. Goodbye, friend,
Host
Nancy Grace
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